Original Art and Prints by Teresa Wentzler
 

A brief explanation.

--Generally, since I plan/hope to reproduce much of the art I create, I try to make it fit into "standard" size measurements... usually a 3:4 ratio. Why? Since I'm doing art for reproduction, I try to make it "fit" my target market. Which would make me a commercial artist... definitely, and without a doubt! Is it unnatural and confining for me as an artist to limit myself in such a manner? Not anymore! 20 years in the needlework (counted cross stitch) designing business teaches you many things: working within various constraints, including size/proportion is one of those things!

--My favorite medium is (and always has been) pen and ink. I *adore* being able to depict detail. I also love black and white: the clean simplicity of black marks on pristine white. However, I am a realist. Color sells!...and since I'd like to make my artwork available to the widest possible audience, I happily tint many of my drawings to give them wider appeal. Trust me, it's not a sacrifice! I have a soft spot for this type of art, and it harkens back to my childhood, when I'd endlessly dream over picture books, and become lost in the magic of the illustrations in them! Obviously, much of that early influence is still with me, as most of my artwork (and needlework designing) is illustrative in nature.

--But I digress!

--I begin with a sketch... always in pencil, as I draw and re-draw...and re-draw again until I'm satisfied with the composition, and am ready to move ahead with the actual inking. After finalizing a drawing, I transfer the main outlines to the inking surface using graphite transfer paper. I usually use 300lb. hot press watercolor paper. It has a smooth, durable surface that is not harmed by any watercolor tinting I might do later, and the paper stands up to the punishment of many lines drawn in a small amount of space! After that, I begin drawing, using sheets of glassine paper to protect the paper from friction/wear. Special care must be taken to insure that the surface of the paper remains smooth and undamaged so that the ink lines stay as "crisp" as possible. Since I routinely work on drawings for a month or longer, precautions are definitely necessary. I also avoid erasing the graphite transfer lines until the ink lines have totally dried.

--Years ago, when I first began drawing with ink, I used traditional crow-quill and mapping-quill nibs dipped in permanent india ink. While I still sometimes use this method, I find I am able to draw much more quickly and accurately using technical pens. While traditional pen nibs allow you to vary the weight of the lines drawn, there is also huge risk involved in that the very sharp points of the nibs can "catch" on the paper fibers, causing blurry/bleeding lines. Another thing that can happen is blobs/blots of ink if, heaven forbid, you accidentally drop or bump your pen, and splatter your work! Ink does not erase! Not fun.

--So, most of the time these days I use Pigma Micron pens (.20mm line width: Size 005). For a large drawing, I usually require two of them, as the points do wear down, and they will go dry (ulike true technical pens, they're non-refillable). However, they are inexpensive and widely available. The ink isn't quite the dense true black of regular india ink, but it's permanent and archival. If I find I need darker black lines, I break out the crow-quills and the bottled india ink (and don't drink caffeine!)

--As far as actual technique goes, I make the ink lines in several different ways...I usually use a combination of techniques within each drawing. My personal preference is to make very deliberate, controlled pen lines as opposed to the free, loose lines used by some pen and ink artists. My drawings tend to have more of an "studied" feel about them rather than a "spontaneous" flavor... which is certainly not to say that one style is better than the other; it's simply my preference. (Yes, I'm a bit of a control freak!) I'll illustrate by using closeups from several drawings.

--The first technique is called cross-hatching: small groups of parallel lines are drawn at angles to each other, and are drawn on top of each other, so that shading results. The more lines placed in one area, the darker the shading. I use this technique quite a lot; I find that it is fairly easy to control the buildup of lines, and therefore the amount of shading.

--In the example below, cross-hatching is used in several places: The areas that are tinted with indigo are cross-hatched. The parts that show as dark blue are where the paper was not covered with ink lines. The edges of the masonry tracery are shaded using the same technique. In fact, most of the shadow work in this example is done using some form of "hatching".

(from: Hide&Seek)

--Another technique is called "stipple". Tiny dots of ink are used to indicated texture and/or shading. Stipple is an extremely time-consuming technique, since each dot must be carefully placed to avoid the appearance of "pattern" where there may be none. I use stipple sparingly, since it is so very tedious, but you can't beat it for precise control of shading! The example above shows just a bit of stippling in the tail of the dragon at the extreme right in the image. Of course, stipple can be used to interesting effect by itself as well... as illustrated by the example below:

from: A self-portrait (that I didn't throw away for some reason!)

--The image below shows the use of stippling in the window panes. I tend to use this technique when I feel that lines would simply be overwhelming, usually in areas of high light.

from: Night Watch

--Note also the use of cross-hatching in the example above. Almost all of the shadowed areas show some variation of the hatching technique: the more lines, the deeper the shadow.

--Finally, there is another technique I use, but I'm not sure there's actually a name for it. I call it texture rendering: filling an area with marks that imitate the texture of what I'm trying to represent. An example of this would be the tree trunk in the example above: I've drawn the bark as a collection of stylized lines: they are distinct and deliberate, not scribbled. Texture is shown by the spacing of the lines and their thickness (weight). In this drawing, to make this technique blend with the others used in the drawing, I've hatched over top of those lines to indicate shadow. More texture rendering would be in the stone frame of the window, where I've used straight, very closely-spaced lines to simulate the smoothness of the stone, and how the light coming from inside reflects off it.

--The next image show a combination of all of the techniques listed above: cross-hatch, (most of the shadow areas, the rocks, the ground) stipple (a bit of extra texture in the blue area), and texture rendering (the scales, the yellow hair-like areas, etc.)

from: Words of Wisdom

--With pen and ink, building from light to shadow is key. Since I add color afterward, I visualize in black and white and many shades of grey while doing the actual drawing. Accomplishing that with lines only is a unique challenge. I prefer not to use solid areas of black in drawings of this type. Since black is the absense of light, a totally black spot in a drawing that is otherwise "naturalistic" in execution will pull the viewer's eye right into it (Imagine the gravitational pull of so-called black holes in space). Of course, this can be effectively utilized (the stunning and highly graphic inkwork of Aubrey Beardsley comes immediately to mind!) but it is not usually what I'm trying to accomplish in illustration-style pieces.

--One other thing I'll mention is this: there are no outlines in nature. Realism in pen and ink (and in any other medium) depends on approximating as closely as possible what is actually *seen*, and not what you *think* is there. But, this is the ultimate charm of pen and ink and why it hold such fascination for me: images can be made to look "real" through the use of texture and careful shading, yet still retain a certain "unreal-ness" by virtue of the fact that the image is made up of nothing but lines! Makes it a perfect match for fantasy subjects, don't you agree?

from: Wizard's Castle (color version)

--Welcome to my world! :-)

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